Chapter XIV: Barbara's Engagement

AUTUMN gave place to winter. November was a wet cold month, then December came in with a long spell of frost, and all hunting was stopped. Barbara was more at home, and there were many days when she and Damaris sat in deep armchairs over cheery wood fires occupied with their books and needlework.

Upon one of these afternoons, Damaris suddenly looked up and said—

"Aunt Barbara, I want to talk to you. I am very happy here—don't think I am not—but it really is too idle a life for me. Would you and grandfather think it dreadful of me if I went away and did some work? I want to do something. Of course, I should like to feel that this was my home, and that I could come and go as I liked. But, you see, I am not needed, am I? I just eat and sleep and have a comfortable time, and I want to do more with my life than that!"

Barbara looked at her in silence for a moment, then she said—

"Is this some sudden thought? I expect Mrs. Dashwood has been trying to convert you."

Damaris coloured up at once.

"Mrs. Dashwood advises me to stay where I am for the present."

"That is good advice." There was another silence, then Barbara said, "What kind of work do you want to take up? Nursing? Slumming? Religious work, or merely philanthropical?"

Damaris hesitated. Then, with an effort, she said—

"I see things differently to what I did, Aunt Barbara. I want to do religious work if I can. I have wanted to be one of the world's workers for a long time. I have never done anything all these years but live for myself; now I want to do something better."

"I am afraid father won't approve. He is old-fashioned in his ideas. I wanted to do something for the Red Cross during the war, but he set his face against it, and I could not well leave him. You had better speak to him about it after dinner. Of course I know most girls have got this craze for work away from their homes. I wonder you did not start it after your uncles' deaths."

"I did not understand things as I do now," said Damaris.

"Oh, well, if it's religious conviction, I've nothing to say," said Barbara bluntly. "As far as I'm concerned, you could go to-morrow. But having gone through all this fuss of finding your relations, and settling down with them, it seems funny that you should want to be up and off again."

Tears crowded into Damaris's eyes.

"I suppose grandfather would think it ungrateful of me."

"Oh, I don't know. Talk to him about it. I have nothing to say in the matter."

Barbara would say no more.

But before dinner, Damaris told her that she did not think she would speak to her grandfather that night.

"It is cowardly of me, but I would not like to hurt his feelings. And as I have formulated no ideas yet, I will wait until I hear of something."

"All right," said Barbara. "I shall say nothing. You may be certain of that."

But, about ten days afterwards, Lord Ennismore came to lunch. And in the afternoon, he and Barbara went for a walk together.

When she came in, she shut herself up in her boudoir for an hour, then sent for Damaris.

"I want to speak to you. Are you still panting for a busier life?"

Damaris smiled.

"I am trying not to pant for it, but to wait for it," she said.

"Well, you know I'm not a person who beats about the bush," Barbara said, "so I may as well tell you that I have been worried for some years now by Lord Ennismore to marry him. I have refused him again and again. First and foremost, because I do not want to become a stepmother. I hated mine so much that I fear old scores will be paid off on me by his daughters. Secondly, because I could not leave my father. Perhaps I should put that as my first reason. Now it has struck me that if you will take my place and look after him and the house, I am free to go. You will not feel then that you are leading a useless existence, for I can tell you it takes a bit of doing. I'm perfectly certain there'll be ructions between you and father if you want to go slumming or anything of that sort. If you'll content yourself with doing my job, I'll be off. I'm not only thinking of myself, but Horace has been wasting all his years waiting for me; and now he has this village scheme on, I know I could help him to run it smoothly. Take your time to think it over."

Damaris felt bewildered. Her aunt's matter of fact way of talking generally amused her; now it almost stunned her.

"Oh!" she said. "It will be a heavy responsibility. How grandfather will miss you! I can never, never take your place! But of course I have no right to make any objections. I will do my best. I don't want time to think it over. How can I say no? I'm not afraid of the housekeeping part of it—I had plenty of experience in that way at my uncles'—but I am afraid of grandfather. You do so much estate business with him. Will he be patient with me till I get into the way of it?"

"I can soon give you the hang of that," said Barbara. "You must spend an hour every morning with me when I'm interviewing Blake our agent."

"I'll do my very best. Oh, Aunt Barbara, may I say how glad I am for you."

Barbara laughed.

"The romance has gone, Damaris. I am too old to enjoy the thought of the change. But Horace and I know each other through and through, and we shall get along very comfortably."

"Poor Mr. Gore!" murmured Damaris.

"Now, who has been stuffing you with that nonsense?" said Barbara, a little shortly.

"Mrs. Bonnycott told me he was fond of you."

"Ridiculous! Mr. Gore is only fond of his insects and birds. We are good friends—but my love of hunting and his dislike of it would bar any close intercourse together. Well, we've settled everything up, and now I'll write to Horace and have a talk with father."

Barbara went away whistling softly to herself, and Damaris slipped up to her own room, where she sat down before her fire, and surveyed with dismay the destruction of her hopes.

"It must be right. Aunt Barbara has spent all her youth in doing what she asks me to do now. But it isn't a high ideal of service. I wonder what Mrs. Dashwood will say. I am afraid she will not pity me. She always puts home ties and duties first, and says God's will and work are foremost there."

Her impulse was to go straight off to the Rectory then and there and tell Mrs. Dashwood everything, but she knew she could not do that, till she had her aunt's leave to do so. So she did what was a much better thing—she took the whole matter to God upon her knees, and asked to be made willing to do His will—even if she were to be debarred a life of active service in the mission field at home or abroad.

Sir Mark took the news with great equanimity of soul.

"I'm glad you're going to make Ennismore happy at last," he said. "You've been long enough making up your mind! And what the dickens I shall do without you I don't know! But Damaris and I will pull along somehow."

"Oh, yes," cried Damaris eagerly; "I mean to do all I can to fill Aunt Barbara's place. And she won't be living very far away from us, will she? If I do get into difficulties, I shall just go over to her."

"Of course—of course. You must learn how to housekeep before she leaves us."

"I am not afraid of that. I kept house for my uncles for so many years—"

"Tut!" exclaimed Sir Mark hastily. "Don't compare that city life of yours to ours here!"

Damaris flushed hotly.

"We had a big house, and a good many maids," she said, with a little resentment in her tone.

"I don't wish to hear anything about that time," said Sir Mark, still irritable.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of in it!" Damaris said, and she quitted the room as she spoke.

"Dash the girl!" exclaimed Sir Mark. "She's strutting away with her head up like a little turkey-cock."

"Father, you must try and not abuse those uncles of hers," said Barbara. "Remember they gave her a home from the time she was a baby."

"City people! City people!" muttered Sir Mark. "And hadn't the grace to leave the child a penny."

When next he saw Damaris, she came up to him in a pretty contrite fashion.

"Forgive me, grandfather, for getting so hot, but I must be loyal towards my uncles. They did a great deal for me."

"Yes, yes; we'll say no more about it, my dear."

The little cloud passed, but Barbara, in her straightforward fashion, spoke to Damaris about it.

"Don't vex your grandfather by mentioning your father's relations. It only upsets him and does no good."

"But he seems to think them beneath his notice. And they were not. They were courteous and kind and thorough gentlemen. Do I show traces of vulgarity? They brought me up. I don't feel inferior to you; and I shall never, never look down upon my own father."

Barbara smiled at the heat of her tones. "You're so young," she said. "Nobody wants you to look down upon your father's people; but we simply don't care to hear about them—at least father does not. You are quite right to be loyal to your uncles' memories, but don't discuss them with us. You will find, as you go through life, that it's best to make for peace, and avoid anything that raises dust. And I don't want you to forget that father has a weak heart, and that his doctor has warned us against letting him excite himself."

"I did not know that," said Damaris, penitently. "But why do you let him hunt?"

"He would break his heart if he did not. He hunts quietly, and a certain amount of exercise is good for him."

Barbara's engagement made a great stir in the neighbourhood.

Stuart arrived over at once, and made his advent known by sitting down at the piano and playing the Wedding March in a very spirited fashion.

When he saw Damaris, he shook his head at her.

"Ah! You're the cause of Barbara's resolve to leave us. I shall lose my lifelong friend now, for I'm not very fond of married women, especially in the first years of married life. I consider she is forsaking me as well as her father. Do you feel equal to taking on Barbara's friends as well as her household duties?"

"I don't feel equal to any of it," said Damaris in a forlorn tone. "I mean to do my best, but it will be a poor best, I'm afraid. I wish you would play something to comfort me. That Wedding March makes me feel miserable."

She and he were alone in the library. She and Barbara had been upstairs together, doing some accounts in Damaris's boudoir, and Barbara had sent her down when she heard the sound of the piano.

"Keep him quiet till I come. I must write a note before I see him."

So Stuart began one of his soothing melodies, and Damaris sat in a low chair by the fire, with her hands loosely clasped in her lap, and her eyes heavy with thought. His keen quick eye passed over her dainty little figure, and then he spoke.

"I don't know that I want you for a friend. I have too many."

Damaris started; then, realising what he had said, she laughed.

"It takes two to make a compact of friendship," she said, "so your statement is premature."

"Oh, I know it sounds uncivil, and if you only saw into my mind, you would know it was anything but that. Friendship is very hollow and uncertain, and most unsatisfactory."

"Very well, we'll have nothing to do with it," said Damaris derisively.

"You sound rather nasty. I want something better than friendship with you."

He drowned his last words in some passionate chords, then broke into some weird Russian fugues, and Damaris listened with a fascination which took her entirely away from herself and surroundings. Then Barbara came in and the spell was broken.

Stuart left the piano, and he and Barbara pulled two deep lounge chairs before the fire and commenced discussing the model village. Damaris left them. She had a good many heart sinkings about the future, but bravely kept them to herself.

Christmas came, and with it a great deal of entertaining at the Hall. Sir Mark's eldest son and family all came to stay. Maurice, the naval son, was home on leave, and Walter came down from town.

Damaris felt almost bewildered at first amongst all her new relations. But their frank kindly acceptance of her soon put her at ease. The only one who held a little aloof from her was Mrs. Herbert Murray. She was a very pretty young woman and accustomed to much attention and homage; but she was not as a rule friendly with young girls, and she rather resented Damaris's presence there. When she heard of Barbara's engagement, she said rather sharply—

"I think Herbert and I had better come down for a bit when you leave your father. He must have somebody responsible here."

"Oh, Damaris is going to look after him," said Barbara placidly.

"That child! She looks like a schoolgirl! And from what I hear has had little opportunity for mixing in decent society."

"She has a clever head-piece of her own," said Barbara; "so spare yourself anxiety on that score, Ella."

"And you are going to make her mistress of the house?"

"Naturally, she will be, when I leave."

Ella said no more. She was an ambitious woman, and longed for the time when she herself would reign at the Hall.

Now she keenly criticised Damaris's every word and action, and the girl was conscious of it at once, and kept out of the elder woman's way as much as possible.

But she loved her little girl and boys, and was the greatest friends with them, taking them out upon the common for walks, and playing games with them in the old nursery at the top of the house.

It was the last evening of their stay. The big drawing-room was lighted up and full of guests, as Barbara had had a big dinner party, and Stuart had just been entertaining them with his music. Damaris was standing by his side, putting some music by, when Mrs. Herbert's clear voice came to them very distinctly. She was talking to a Lady Maria Leslie, one of the greatest gossips of the county.

"It's a mercy she takes after her mother—that was the item which appealed to Sir Mark—her father was a mere nobody; and she has been brought up by her father's people in the city. I tell Barbara it's a risky experiment bringing her forward in the way she does; one never feels sure of her. And I did hear she had had a very unsatisfactory love entanglement before she came here."

Damaris's cheeks flushed hotly, and such a fire shot into her eyes that for one instant Stuart thought she was going to lose control of herself. She met his glance, and her lips compressed in straight tense lines.

"Idle words never hurt," he said.

"They hurt more than a blow," retorted Damaris.

Then the fire died down in her eyes.

"I must live it down," she said; "my grandfather talks in that way sometimes—at least, he seems to think he has rescued me from a very low-class life and position. And as it is not a fact, it makes me very angry."

Stuart looked sympathetic. Then he said lightly—

"We've all something to bear, haven't we? It's good for us—otherwise we shouldn't be disciplined in self-control and endurance. Now my cross is that people will not take me seriously. I had a battle-royal to-day with a self-complacent builder, who kept saying, 'You will have your little joke, sir!' I could thankfully have throttled him, for I was bursting with savage earnestness."

Damaris smiled. Her moment of passion was over. When, a few minutes after, Mrs. Herbert spoke to her, she answered her serenely and sweetly.

But Stuart's quick understanding and sympathy brought a warmth to her heart. And then he said good-night to her, and added sotto voce—

"Cheer up! We all know Mrs. Herbert, and she goes to-morrow."

She responded instantly—

"I shall forget all about it. What a nice understanding kind of person you are!"

And when he had gone she said to herself—

"I wonder why he said he didn't want to be my friend. No others have shown themselves as friendly as he."

The Christmas party broke up, and then, a couple of months later, Barbara's marriage took place. It was very quiet, but Damaris had her hands full. And when it was all over, she went up to her room and had a quiet cry. She knew every one would miss her aunt, she most of all. Barbara's quiet cheeriness, and strong firm decision of character made her a very efficient ruler. And when Damaris found herself left alone, it needed all her pluck and courage to take up the reins of government, and try to be the companion of her grandfather that her aunt had been.

Mrs. Dashwood helped her very much at this juncture. She was so cheerfully confident that Damaris's duty was at home, and that her work for God lay there, that the girl herself came to believe it, and was content.

It was not always easy sailing. Sir Mark was irritable and impatient when things went wrong.

"If Barbara were here, it would not have happened," he would say. And there was often injustice in the complaint.

On the whole, he and Damaris got on very well together. She learned to be patient with him when he was unreasonable and hot-tempered. He learnt to be patient with her when she was slow in comprehending his business matters.

The old servants loved Damaris. She had no difficulty in managing her housekeeping. And when Barbara came over for a short visit after her honeymoon, she was satisfied that Damaris was supplying her place very competently.